Case Report

The Professional Advancement and Recognition program is designed to support professional development and to recognize professional contributions by occupational therapists and physical therapists at all points in one's career.

The program serves as the formal process for promotion and advancement to develop and recognize clinical expertise.

For the advancement to Expert Clinician level, a Case Report is required.

A Case Report is a comprehensive document. The case report should be written to a sufficient level such that publication in a peer reviewed journal is possible, but publication is not required for promotion.

Case Reports involve a formal style of writing and follow a specific format. Case Reports reflect typical clinical practice in that they have only one pre-intervention measurement and one post-intervention measurement. Thus, the purpose of a Case Report is to describe practice and not to determine cause and effect relationships.

Issues highlighted in the Case Report may include:

Patient/client management

Ethical dilemmas

Use of equipment or devices

Administrative or educational concerns

A Case Report is not equivalent to a single subject design research study which uses experimental controls and repeated measures and, therefore, may be used to show cause and effect relationships among variables. Case Reports refer to descriptions of practice that do not involve "research methodology."